Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Kimchi And Chocolates

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I just had an unlikely breakfast of country sausage and home made kimchi and it was delicious! My friend James made some amazing kimchi and gave me a jar a couple weeks ago and I had been saving just a little bit of it for that one special moment that turned out to be today. But all the while I was eyeing the little box of chocolates that Evelyn gave me this morning. You can be assured that the box is still intact. (at least until I take a coffee break this afternoon) ;)

The kimchi was so good that I decided to make some myself. So I did what anybody would do when you want to learn how to do something, I went to YouTube! It's pretty straightforward and now I wait until the fermentation transforms this spicy mix of napa cabbage, green onions, ginger and red pepper.

As much as I'd like to report the successes in the studio with my new "program" of twelves, I regret to inform you all that I got a little behind on my quota-focused production. So over the weekend I tried to catch up and soon after my table was covered in plastic. With the woodstove keeping the cold temps at bay, pots were dryin' pretty fast.

The fact that a bunch of the pots were tiny didn't help! So I have caught up to where I should be for today. That's good. The firing date is beginning to loom, that's bad. My wood pile is only half of what it should be. Wednesday is my day to travel to Buladean for a load of wood. The weather should be right, not too soggy. I will need two trips to get the wood I need and hopefully my man, Milan, will have a few bundles I can choose from.

But the one nagging thing that has plagued me this past week, and for the last few, actually, is this damn blog. I don't know how so many of you potter bloggers do it? Daily posts, wit, frequent insights, entertaining videos! I haven't been able to sit down to write but one post a week it seems. And then I don't have any notes to remind me of all the brilliant things I wanted to say! (maybe there aren't any?) Maybe I will try to return to my old ways of blogging whatever and whenever. Impulsive and all inclusive blogging. One of the mountains I am currently climbing seems to be writing! Writing takes practice and I am out of shape. Not that I was ever a great writer, but at least I practiced more often and more frequently. Now I spend a lot of time following the cursor as it reverses over what I type. Second guesses and self doubt are my main outputs. As with making art, you have to make a lot of it and make it often to get anywhere with it. Otherwise you spend most of your time carefully looking at where you are about to step instead of running all out and feeling the wind in your face.I'm finally "running" in the studio and will now try to get some momentum here at ye olde blogge. Here's the table after yesterday's pots were made. I thought it would be fun to make some really tiny pots after finding that little jar(middle left) kicking around on a shelf in the studio. Then I amused myself with the irony of making some biggish pots, hardy har har. It wasn't so easy as I had one after another flop down on the wheel. Another was wedged back up after I decided that it was just plain awful! It's a very different movement, forming tiny pots with one's fingertips, and then shaping a large pot with a rib. I also wonder what the effect of the distortion my reading glasses give to the "line" of the pot. When throwing a larger pot my right ear points to the floor most of the time, while throwing the smaller jars was done while standing fairly upright.OK, that should do it for now. The snow has stopped out there, and I guess school will not be cancelled. As I glance out the window up to the shop, I see that last night's fire in the wood stove is still alive and is producing just a wisp of bluish smoke. But that's all I need to get it roaring in no time! I hope you are out there loving the spin you're in.